“Hey!” he said in sudden glee. “Uh, Captain. Sir?”
“Yeah?”
“Hey, uh, I did okay, huh?”
“You did swell. You were a hero.” But he had other heroes in his mind at that second, dead ones. Shmuel the Jew and Tony Outhwaithe, Oxonian. Here was a moment they might have enjoyed. No, not really. Shmuel hated the violence; no joy in this for him. And Tony. Who ever knew about Tony? Susan? No, not Susan either. Susan would see only two beasts with the blood of a third all over them.
“Well, now,” said Roger, grinning, “you think I’ll get a medal?” He was supremely confident. “I mean it was kind of brave what I did, wasn’t it? It would be for my folks mainly.”
Leets said he’d think it over.
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Red didn’t like what came next. This business was tricky, and always involved the immutable law of unintended consequences, but thank God he’d thought ahead and had good people in place and it could be done neatly and professionally, with maximized chances of success. He thought his father would be proud, for this was an old Ray Bama trick: Avoid violence, avoid force, always negotiate. But when violence is unavoidable, strike fast, unexpectedly, and with total commitment and willpower.
He dialed a number. A man answered.
“Yeah?”
“Do you know who this is?”
“Yes sir.” The voice had a familiar Spanish accent to it, Cuban probably.
“The team is ready?”
“The guys are all in. It’s a good team. Steady guys. Been around. Solid, tough, know their stuff. Some are—”
“I don’t want names or details. But it has to be done. You do it. I’ll get you the intelligence, the routes, and you clear everything through this number. When you’re ready to move, you let me know. I’ll want a look at the plan, I’ll want on-site reports. No slip-ups. You’re being paid too much, all of you, for slip-ups.”
“There won’t be no slip-ups,” the man said.
The man on the other end of the phone, in a farmhouse just outside of Greenwood in far Sebastian County, let the dial tone come up and then he consulted a card and began to dial pager numbers.
Nine pagers rang. Two, one right after another, went off at the Blood, Sweat and Tears Gymnasium on Griffin Park Road in Fort Smith, where two immense men with necks the size of lampshades were hoisting what appeared to be tons of dead weight at separate Nautilus stations. Each was olive in skin tone, with glistening black hair and dark, deep, watchful eyes, identical even to the tattoos that festooned their gigantic arms, though one had a crescent of puckered, bruise-purple scar tissue that ran halfway around his neck, evidence of some grotesque encounter about which it would probably be better not to ask. They had bodies of truly immense mass, not the beautifully proportioned, narcissistic sculptured flesh of bodybuilders but the huge, densely muscled bodies of men who needed strength professionally, like interior linemen or New Orleans mob drug enforcers and hit men.
Another pager rang in the back room of a crib just across the state line in Sequoyah County, Oklahoma, where a sleek black man was enjoying an act of oral sex being performed on him by a blond-haired woman of about thirty. He knew that she was really a man, but he didn’t really care; a mouth was a mouth.
Another pager buzzed on the firing line at the On-Target Indoor Firearms Range over in Van Buren, as its owner stood with a customized Para-Ordnance P16 in .40 S&W, calm and steady as a rock, blowing an ever-widening tattery hole in the head of a B-27 silhouette hanging from a pulley-mounted wire twenty-five yards out. He finished the sixteen-round clip, pulled in the target, and examined the orifice he’d opened. Then he smiled, returned the gun to its case, and checked out. In the parking lot he made a show of putting the case in the trunk, but adeptly slid the .40 into an Alessi inside-the-pants holster, after, of course, inserting a fresh sixteen-round clip and cocking and locking.
Other sites: Ben & Jackie’s Harley-Davidson shop, on 271 South, where a huge man in black leathers and the lush hair of a rock singer, drawn into a ponytail, contemplated a chromeplated extended muffler; the Central Mall Trio Theaters, on Rogers Avenue, where two rangy men who could have been ballplayers but weren’t sat watching an extremely violent and idiotic movie; Nick’s Chicken Shack on Route 71, where a large, pie-faced black man with a great many rings and necklaces ate a second extra-spicy breast, and finally at the Vietnam Market on Rogers, where a snake-thin Asian, also with a ponytail and a webbing of tattoos that ran from his neck down one arm (and scared the hell out of the proprietors) was trying to decide between diced mushroom and dried asparagus for the three-color vegetable salad he was contemplating for that night. He was a vegetarian.
The team leader, a Marisol Cuban with a gaudy career in Miami behind him, was named Jorge de la Rivera. He was an exceptionally handsome man and spoke in his vaguely Spanish accent to the assembled unit before him.
“We’re thinking mainly of going for the kill from cars. Not a drive-by, not this guy, but a set-up assault off a highway ambush, coordinated and choreographed, with good command and control. Three cars, a driver, two shooters in each car. Body armor. Lots of firepower up front. You want to go at this guy behind a fucking wall of nine millimeter.”
He waited. They were assembling their weapons, a selection of submachine guns stolen in a raid three weeks earlier from the New Orleans Metropolitan Police Property Room. He saw a couple of shorty M-16s, three MP-5s, one with a silencer, another with a laser sighting device, a Smith & Wesson M76 with a foot of silencer, and the rest that universal soldier of the drug wars, ugly and reliable as an old whore, the Israeli Uzi.
Those who had satisfied themselves with their weapons loaded ammunition into clips: Federal hardball, 115 grain, slick and gold for the subs; or Winchester ball .223 for the 16s.
“You been paid very very well. If you die, money goes to your families you got families, your girlfriends otherwise. You get caught, you get good lawyers. You do time, it’s good time, no hassle from screws or niggers or dirty white boys, depending on which color you are. Good time, smooth time.
“That’s ’cause you the best. Why do we need the best? ’Cause this fucking guy, he’s the best.”
He handed a photo around: It passed from shooter to shooter. It showed a thin man who might have been handsome if he hadn’t been so grim, leathery-faced, with thin eyes, squirrel shooter’s eyes.
“This guy was a big fucking hero in that little war they had over in fucking gook country.”
“Hey, Hor-hey, you not be talking about my country that way, man,” said the ponytailed Asian as he popped the bolt on a sixteen and it slammed shut.
“Hey, we can be friends, no? No bullshit. I’m telling you good, you listen. Nigger, spic, cowboy, motorcycle fuck, wops, slope, fucking southern whiteboy asskickers, we got to work together on this. We’re a fucking World War Two movie. We’re America, the melting pot. Nobody got no problem with nobody else, right, am I right? I know you guys have worked alone mainly or in small teams. If you want to go home in one piece, take it from Jorge, you do this my way.”
“I don’t like the gook shit.”
“Then take it out on this boy. He killed eighty-seven of you guys. That was back in ’72. They even got a nickname for him; they call him ‘Bob the Nailer,’ ’cause he nails you but good. You think he forget how? In 1992, bunch of fucking Salvadorian commandos, trained by Green Berets even, think they got his ass fried on the top of a little hill? He kills forty-four of ’em. He shoots down a fucking chopper. He sends them crying home to mamacito. This guy is good. They say he’s the best shot this great country ever produced. And when it gets all shitty brown in your underpants ’cause the lead is flying, they say this guy just gets cooler and cooler until he’s ice. Ain’t no brown in his pants. His heart don’t even beat fast. Part fucking Indian, maybe, only Indians are like that.”
“He’s a old man,” said the lanky cowboy. “His time has passed. He ain’t as fast or as smart as he once was. I heard about him in the Corps, where they thought he was a god. He wasn’t no god. He was a man.”
“Were you in ’Nam?” asked Jorge.
“Desert Storm, man. Same fucking thing.”
“Yeah, well,” said Jorge, “whatever. Anyhow, we tie the whole thing together on secure cellulars. We move south this afternoon, as I say, three cars, three men in a car, and me, I’ll be in a pickup, I’ll hold the goddamned thing together while I’m talking to the boss. We know where he lives, but I don’t want to do it there. We hunt him on the roads. We move in hunter-killer teams. You get a sighting, we work the maps, we plot his course, we pick him up. Very professional. Like we are the fucking FBI. We get him and his pal on a goddamned country road, and then it’s World War Three. We’ll show this cabrone something about shooting.”
Bob stopped talking.
A plane. That was it. The sound of an airplane engine, steady, not increasing in speed, just low enough and far enough away, almost a fly’s buzz.
“Go on,” said Russ.
“Just shut up,” Bob said.
“What is—”
“Don’t look around, don’t speed up, don’t slow down, you just stay very calm now,” Bob said.
He himself didn’t look around. Instead, he closed his eyes and listened, trying hard to isolate the airplane engine from the roar of his own truck, the buffeting of the wind, the vibrations of the road. In time, he had it.
Very slowly he turned his head, yawning languidly as he went along.
Off a mile on the right, a white twin-engine job, maybe a Cessna. Those babies went 240 miles per hour. Either there was a terrific head wind howling out of the east, or the pilot was hovering right at the stall speed to stay roughly parallel and in the same speed zone with the truck.
He glanced quickly out the window. The plane was turning lazily away.
“Everything okay? I mean, you tensed up there, now you’re relaxed. Everything’s okay, right?”
“Oh, every goddamn thing’s just super fine,” said Bob, yawning again, “except, of course, we are about to git ambushed.”
“Air to Alpha and Baker,” said Red, holding steady at 2,500 feet, running east, loafing again, dangerously near stall.
“Alpha here,” came a voice.
“What about Baker?”
“Oh, yeah, uh, I’m here too. I figured he said he was here, you’d know I was here.”
“Forget figuring. Tell me exactly what I ask you. Got that?”
“Yes sir,” said Baker contritely.
“Okay, I want you in pursuit. He’s about four miles ahead of you, traveling around fifty miles an hour. No Smokeys, no other traffic on the road. You go into maximum pursuit. But I am watching you and on my signal you drop down to fifty-five. I don’t want him seeing you move super fast, do you read?”
“Yes sir.”
“Then step on it, goddammit.”
“Yes sir.”
“You hang steady there, Mike and Charlie. No need you racing anywhere, they are coming to you. I see intercept in about four minutes. I’m going to let Alpha and Baker close in, then I’ll bring you and Baker into play, Mike? You read?”
“Yes sir.”
He looked back along the road and out of the distance watched as two large sedans roared along the highway at over one hundred miles an hour, trailing dust and closing fast with the much slower moving truck.
“Oh, I smell blood. I smell the kill. It’s looking very good. Alpha, I see you and your buddy closing. You just keep closing, you’re getting close, okay now, slow way down. Mike, you and Charlie now, okay, you start moving out, nice gentle pace, about fifty-five, we are two minutes away, I got you both in play.”
Someone inadvertently held a mike button down and Red heard strange things over the radio—some harsh, tense scraping and what sounded like someone systematically turning a television set on and off. Then he realized: That was the dry breathing of men about to go into a shooting war and they were cocking and locking their weapons for it.
Words poured out of Russ as if he’d lost control of them, and he could not control their tone: They sounded high, tinny, almost girlish.
“Should we stop?” he moaned. “Should we pull off and call the police? Is there a turnoff? Should we—”
“You just sit tight, don’t speed up, don’t slow down. We got two cars behind us. I bet we got some traffic ahead of us. And we got a plane off on the right coordinating it. We are about to get bounced and bounced hard.”
Russ saw Bob shimmy in the seat, but he could tell he was reaching to get something behind the seat without disturbing his upright profile. He looked into the rearview mirror and saw two cars appear from behind a bend in the road.
“Here’s the first and only rule,” said Bob steadily. “Cover, not concealment. I want you out of the truck with the front wheelwell and the engine block between you and them. Their rounds will tear right through the truck and get to you otherwise.”
Russ’s mind became a cascade of silvery bubbles; he fought to breathe. His heart weighed a ton and was banging out of control. There was no air.
“I can’t do it,” he said. “I’m so scared.”
“You’ll be all right,” Bob said calmly. “We’re in better shape than you think. They have men and they think they have surprise, but we’ve got the edge. The way out of this is the way out of any scrape: We hit ’em so hard so fast with so much stuff they wish they chose another line of work.”
Ahead, one and then a second vehicle emerged from the shimmery mirage. The first was another pickup, black and beat up, and behind it, keeping a steady rate fifty yards behind, another sedan. Russ checked the rearview: The two cars were drawing closer, but not speeding wildly. He made out four big profiles, sitting rigidly in the lead car.
“Don’t stare at ’em, boy,” said Bob as he overcame the last impediment and got free what he was pulling at. In his peripheral vision Russ saw that it was the Ruger Mini-14 and the paper bag. He pulled something compact from the bag; Russ realized it was the short .45 automatic, which he quickly stuffed into his belt on his right side, behind his kidney. He groped for something else.
Russ looked up. The truck drew nearer. It was less than a quarter of a mile away. It would be on them in seconds now.
“Where is it?” demanded Bob of himself harshly, fear large and raspy in his voice as he clawed through the bag. His fear terrified Russ more powerfully than the approaching vehicles.
What is he looking for? Russ wondered desperately.
Red watched as his masterpiece unfolded beneath him with such solemn splendor. It was all in the timing and the timing was exquisite. De la Rivera in the Mike truck, followed by the four men in Charlie, closed from the front at around forty miles per hour. Meanwhile, the Alpha and Baker vehicles, moving at the speed limit, steadily narrowed the distance between themselves and Swagger. They would be fifty or so yards behind him when de la Rivera hit Swagger’s truck and blew it off the road.
“You’re closing nicely, Alpha and Baker,” he crooned. “You’re looking good there, Mike.”
They had him!
It would work!
Red pulled in his breath, felt his heart inflate and his blood pressure spiral.
De la Rivera was now taking over.
“Okay, muchachos, is so very muy bueno, let’s be very very calm now, let’s stay calm and cool, I see you, Alpha, you’re so very fine, let’s do a quick double check on our pieces, make sure we got our mags seated, our bolts locked, our safeties in the red zone, let’s stay muy glace, icy, icy, very icy, very cool, it’s happening, oh, it’s gonna be so good for all of us.”
The vehicles were closing.
They had reached a flat, high section of the road, where the dwarf, ice-pruned white oak lay gnarled and stunted on either side, yielding swiftly to vistas on either side of other ranges.
“N
ow, you listen,” said Bob fiercely. “This truck’s going to try and whack you. The split second before you pull even to him, I want you to drop to second and gun this motherfucker. That should carry us by his lunge and cut the two boys off behind us. Then I want a hard left, you rap the rear of his follow car, really mess him up, shake up the boys inside; you continue from that into a hard left panic stop, we skid across the road and come to rest in the shoulder on that side so’s we can fall back and get into them trees and down the side of the mountain if need be. Okay, you’re coming out my side of the vehicle and you’re breaking left to the front wheelwell, where you’re going to cover. You take the bag. Your job is going to be to feed me magazines from the bag as I need them. You watch; when I pop a mag, you hand me the next one, bullets out, so’s I can slap her in and get back to rock and roll.”
“Yes sir,” said Russ, trying to remember it all, desperate that he would forget it, but amazed somehow that already there was a plan, and somehow also calmed by it. And Bob seemed calm too.
“You gotta stay calm, you gotta stay cool,” said Bob.
“I’m okay,” Russ said, and he was.
“Ah,” said Bob, “here the goddamn thing is.” And with that he withdrew something from the bag and Russ could see that it was a long, curved magazine, different from the others, with a red-tipped cartridge seated in its lips.
The truck was on them. It was happening right now.
“What’s that?” Russ had time to ask as the universe unlatched from reality and fell into dreamlike slow motion. He heard Bob seat the magazine and with a clak! let the bolt fly home.
“Forty rounds M-196 ball tracer,” said Bob. “We’re going to light these boys up.”
Red watched in full anticipation of his precisely choreographed envelopment, simultaneously banking to the left and adding power so that he could hold the spectacle beneath him as he circled around it, gull-like. He watched as the vehicles seemed to combine and it was almost magical the way he’d seen it in his mind and it was working out in reality.